Original radio/stereo harness

[Bo525i]

Hi everyone, greetings from sweden :)

I´d like to collect some input about how hard it would be to refit the original radio/stereo harness on my ´93 touring, no cd changer and no amp in the rear. PO cut ´n spliced it in a really amateurish way for connecting a Sony via self-rigged ISO connectors and my CD43 works ok, sound in all speakers! But on the powerside, the blinking alarm light, speed sensitive volume and power antenna dont, unit is only connected with 2 12+ and ground on pins 5, 9 and 15 :(

Tia.

[GJPinAU]

If you go to www.bmwE34.net you should find a few answers.

good luck

[Bo525i]

Already checked that, but thx anyways ! :)

[BMWDriver]

I had a similar problem, where luckily I still had the original harness, so I just matched the wire colors. However, the color schemes did not necessarily match what documentation I found online.

Still, the harness is well designed in itself, and you can actually take it apart and get the metallic connectors out if you go carefully about it.

You may have wires loose in your dash that should connect to the head unit. Those must have been useless on the Sony. If I understand correctly BMW's design, one of those is specifically for the alarm of the head unit.

Hope this helps.

[Bo525i]

Taking the dash apart with my 9 thumbs scares me :D Thx for the advice tho!

[Kalevera]

It's not that bad if you don't mind getting into it. Most of the harness runs in the conduit on the LH lower body side of the car, accessible without removing the carpet. You will want to remove the dash, probably the driver's seat, and then there's the rear trims. Couple it with a heater core replacement, and removing the console parts to do that will make removing the dash a quick step.

[BMWDriver]

I'm not talking about taking the dash off or anything. The wires that are not connected ought to be lying around behind the head unit. Just taking it out might be enough, with a flashlight in hand methinks. Unless the PO completely redid the wiring.

But, I understand the feeling. However I found scrounging around the bmwe34.net pictures were a big demystifier, and also having a look at the post going on here about the interior swap an inspiration for later mods. Other posts here are excellent with pics on re-doing the stereo. I found them reassuring and so I went ahead with my head unit swap.

[Ferret]

Best thing to do I think:

Have a look at this (http://www.bimmer.info/forum/showthread.php?t=36744) thread, specifically the end bit about popping the whole air conditioning panel out.

If you can get behind there you can trace the harness back a bit, cut it clean off. Go to a scrap yard and find the exact same year and a model reasonably similar. Rip out its original connector with a good bit of wire to spare and splice it into your harness neatly...

It will need to be the same/damn close to the year you have as they changed the looms around a lot. You should also be able to use an E36 loom iirc...

[Bo525i]

I looked for loose wires, found 1 orange/yellow and found out that the PO cut the wires far behind the dash somewhere, mixed up the colours when splicing.. :(

So Ferret your suggestion seems to be the only viable solution atm as I´ve already gotten my hands on a long piece (almost back to the trunk)of original harness with connector, same year etc.

Thx for the link too, great pics :)

Thx to u all for the suggestions !